


Are You Still Awake?

by Insomniac98338



Category: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time & Explorers of Darkness & Explorers of Sky
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Codependency, Existential Crisis, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 12:30:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20778608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insomniac98338/pseuds/Insomniac98338
Summary: Most PMD protagonists are lucky to walk away as well adjusted as they are. This is the story of one who isn't.





	Are You Still Awake?

**Author's Note:**

> Full transparency, I'm not guaranteeing that this fic is especially well written. Wasn't even originally supposed to be, uh, the way that it is. This was originally going to be comedic and shippy self-indulgent garbo. Then the cynical part of my brain took over and didn't really let up until the end. Now it's just angsty garbo with a slightly inconsistent tone! And I'm posting it anyway despite not being much of a writer, even as a hobby, if only because I spent time on this that I could've spent more productively by making a spirited attempt at flossing myself to death. And for what it's worth an...effort...was made to salvage the inconsistent tone. Whether it actually worked or not is up in the air. I just wanted to be done working on this so I could go back to just reading fanfiction instead of thinking I can actually write it. Enjoy. Or not. I dunno man, I'm not your boss.

Have you ever woken up one day with the knowledge that you would soon regret all the terrible decisions that led to this moment? There have been many such moments for a certain ex-human/Riolu, but at least in those specific moments he could say that the weather was fair. Sunny, but never too hot. The same could not be said for this specific day. For once, this Riolu was not woken by the sun's gentle rays, but instead the incessant pounding of rain upon Sharpedo Bluff, and a merciless chill in the air. It was at this moment that he knew that this would be a Very Bad Day. And that was  _before _ his coworker and primary benefactor, a Vulpix named Karla, woke up.

“Good morning, Levin!” said Vulpix exclaimed with what Levin thought to be entirely too much cheer.

“I don't see what's so good about this particular morning. I mean, you do see what I'm seeing, right? Pure misery in liquid form? Please tell me you're not planning on going out in this weather.”

He knew as soon as it left his mouth that was the wrong thing to say. Karla didn't respond at first; she just stared at the rain as if it wasn't the most offensive thing to her existence. When she deigned to look at him again, she had this _Look _in her eyes that he knew all too well. (Oh no), he thought, his dread only increasing by the second, (I know that look. That's the face of someone who I'm about to regret ever associating with. Every time she ever got that fiercely determined look in her eyes it would tell me without exception that for however bad my day was at that moment, it was about to get exponentially worse_._)

“_Karla, please tell me you don't plan on going out in this weather_,” he repeated, truly desperate now. She didn't even have to think about her reply:

“Of course we're still going out. Days like this are when Pokémon need exploration teams more than ever! Just think, if it's bad enough that you don't even want to consider going out, imagine how much worse it is for anyone currently trapped in a mystery dungeon.”

And there it is! The guilt-tripping. Oh sure, she'll swear up and down that it's not intentional, but she knows. Levin is certain that on _some level _she knows about his saving people thing. It started with retrieving her Relic Fragment, and it only escalated from there. From that point on, she always, even if unconsciously, knew exactly what to say to make him feel like a jerk for minding his own business.

“I suppose you have...something of a point. Fine, if it can't be helped. Let's just try to be quick about this.”

\---

One especially perilous trip to Amp Plains later, the pair found themselves returning home more singed than they would have been if not for the torrential downpour leaving them especially vulnerable to electricity, and soaked to the bone, shivering. The wind and rain raged just as fierce at night as they did that morning, chilling them even further. A weaker-than-it-should-have-been Ember from Karla ignited a campfire they had just set up, finally providing a much-needed respite from the cold. Only then did one exhausted and perpetually put-upon Riolu break the silence.

“...I distinctly recall a time when we had a properly walled off room. I kinda miss that. Eardrums at risk of being ruptured by Loudred, I don't miss as much. But the walls, I do miss those. 'It'll be fine,' you said. 'The weather is beautiful and the view of the ocean is to die for', you said. Fat lot of good that view is doing us now. How did I ever let you convince me to move in here?”

“Because you never learned how to say no?”

“Not...entirely true. But sure. Let's go with that.” Silence reigned between them once again. They hardly ever excelled at small talk at the best of times. Recent events only served to make the silence all the more stifling.

(It always comes down to that, doesn't it? Banter just for the sake of banter. The awkward silence whenever we run out of things to say. Never any real warmth to it these days. Not like before when we were just starting out. Back when I was enough of a blank slate to  _care_ . Now that's something I haven't done in a while. Care. About life. About my friendships. About living. I'm only still here because I don't have any other place in the world, because I'm still needed here. Because Karla forgot how to live without me. I think she knows that too, she just doesn't acknowledge it. Neither of us acknowledge it. It's easier to banter just for the sake of bantering, and banter just for the sake of pretending that nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong, except for everything. Everything is  _wrong_ and nothing feels  _right_ anymore. She continues to smile and laugh just like before and I continue to snark and sass and complain about horrible working conditions like I always used to, but we both know that our surface level interactions don't mean anything anymore. Even the warmth of the sun has abandoned us today, leaving nothing but wind and rain and  _cold_ .)

“...It's getting late. We should get as comfortable as we can for now. Hopefully we'll be able to sleep through the worst of this.”

Levin didn't need to be told twice. Resigned to a night as miserable as the day had been, he nonetheless followed Karla's lead in moving his bed (more a pile of hay, really, but that's just being needlessly pedantic) as close to the fire as he dared, and curled up for the night. The cold embrace of sleep could not come soon enough.

\---

Sleep, unfortunately, did _not _come soon enough. Evidently his body disagreed with the notion that you can't feel cold if you're too busy sleeping. The reality has always been that you can't be too busy sleeping to feel something if you're too busy feeling something to sleep in the first place. And in the absence of sleep, that generally meant...well that's unusual. Normally his partner would use these restless moments to vent about their day, but for once...there was nothing. Nothing, but the wind and the rain, and the last defiant crackles of a dying flame, giving Levin yet more (unwanted) time to reflect on when he last felt warm and truly _alive_.

(...What am I even still doing here?)

He didn't need to ask himself. Of course he knew the answer already. He first joined the Wigglytuff guild because he needed food in his belly and a roof over his head while he searched for his missing identity. He recalled something about helping a certain Vulpix live up to her potential as an explorer, but that was always incidental to his own goal. To find his identity, he required food and shelter. If he wanted food and shelter, he would have to join a guild. Risking life and limb to preserve the peace of a society he had no understanding of wasn't ideal, but anything was better than homelessness and starvation. He already had enough on his plate with not even knowing why he washed up on that beach with no memory of his past life in the first place.

He might have even come to appreciate the life he built up for himself. He couldn't deny the inherent thrill of growing strong enough to protect himself, or the privilege of seeing all the beautiful sights the world had to offer, or even the...other guild members? He wouldn't necessarily call them friends, even if they seemed to think of him as one. It would be more accurate to say that he remained cordial with them if only because it would have been too troublesome to not treat them with a modicum of respect. Considering the friendly atmosphere of the guild, he really shouldn't have been surprised that this was enough to qualify him for friendship. On some level, he would admit to himself if no one else that it felt reassuring to have allies that cared about his well-being.

If he had to pinpoint the exact moment he stopped caring about his happiness and well-being, he supposed it would have to be the moment he learned the terrible truth about his existence. He came from a future that was never meant to exist. _He _was never meant to exist. This brought an immediate change in how he approached the coming battles. He concluded that he no longer needed to survive his journey. His role in things was to be a sacrifice to create a brighter future for everyone else. His. Role. No one else's. If his role was to sacrifice himself, then he would do everything in his power to be the _only _sacrifice. To that end, he threw himself into battle with a self-destructive ferocity that no one had ever seen from him before. For each enemy that set their sights on Karla, he would take any blow meant for her instead. No matter the size of the enemy, no matter how battered his own body got, even with the colossal might of a mad god bearing down on him, the very thought of spending his final conscious moments mourning the loss of someone who still had a future was unacceptable to him. There was no going back from that, because that was _his role_.

And then, months, or from his own perspective mere _moments _later...none of that mattered. He once again woke up on that beach. The very god that he defied with all the strength he could muster saw fit to bring him back from nonexistence. This was supposed to be his second chance at life, but he couldn't bring himself to enjoy it. How do you come back from losing all sense of self-preservation? All sense of _self-worth_? How do you _live_? So much had changed, and yet nothing changed at all. Without Wigglytuff's guild, without Treasure Town, he was nothing, he was no one. The only life he could live was the only life he had known. And the only life he had known was the life of advancing another's dream.

(Speaking of said someone...) he thought with an idle glance at his partner, (what in the world were you playing at the other day?)

\---

“What I said about you being more important than anything...I meant every word of it. I love you!”

\---

(You knew that I was once human. You knew that of all things I could have remembered, it just had to be that I was human. That it was the only unique aspect of my past life by which I could identify myself. You hardly know the first thing about me when even I don't even know how old I am. And of all times, you waited until I had to rely on you to put a roof over my head to say that? How did you _think _that would play out?)

He wasn't even surprised by it. Not really. The signs were all there. The way she sidled up to him while they gazed at Fogbound Lake. How just looking at him would be enough to brighten up her day. How she would even look at him the same way Celebi would look at Grovyle. But for her to express those feelings outright? How absurd. He was human. Reciprocating her feelings would always be impossible as long as he identified as human.

He remembered most of his fellow guildmates teasing him about their “obvious chemistry”, or so they called it, in the last few days leading up to his graduation from the guild. They never let up even afterward, having noticed Karla's unrestrained eagerness at having him move in with her. Because why wouldn't he move in with her? They were so used to sharing a room already and it never meant anything before, and on top of that he was right back to being as homeless as when he first washed up on that beach. But even such perfectly reasonable context wouldn't stop the teasing.

“You two always look so cute together, when are you going to ask her out?” Sunflora was always the most forward about things like this. Loudred seemed jealous that Levin had someone who thought as highly of him as Karla did. Even Chatot got in on it with such nonsense as “you'll only be young once in your life! Don't you dare squander your youth!” He still held some respect for them, or at least as much as he could in his listless state of mind, but even that was a bit much. Did everyone forget that he was once human, or does that just really not matter to them anymore?

Chimecho took pity on the boy for all their good-natured teasing and pulled the boy aside to explain their guildmates' behavior.

\---

“I don't really _get it_ get it, but I think I get where you're coming from. You're living the life of a Pokémon now, but you still see yourself as human. I didn't know Grovyle all that well, but I do know he first met you as a human, so he probably saw you that way too. We all met you as a Pokémon. Pokémon are simple creatures. If you look like a Pokémon, and if you walk like a Pokémon, and if you fight like a Pokémon, then you can't really blame us if we see you as just another Pokémon, can you?”

Levin supposed he really couldn't blame them. It's not like they truly understood what it meant to be something other than what you were supposed to be. “But then,” Chimecho reasoned, “if you _were _still supposed to be a human, then why weren't you brought back as one?”

\---

Levin didn't have an answer to that. Why _was _he brought back as a Pokémon? Or maybe he did have an answer, and he was just too stubborn to admit it. Humans don't belong in this world. Humans _do _exist, he was living proof of that. If even just one human existed in the paralyzed future, then surely there must be more in the “present” time, the time before Dialga's madness ravaged the land. They surely _must _exist, but even now they're scarce enough to be regarded as myths and legends. Humans exist...but the land belongs to Pokémon now. That's just how it is, and that's how it has been for as long as the residents of Treasure Town have been alive, and even longer than that still. Life as a human would have been even more devoid of purpose than his life feels now. _They_ all must have known this too. They must have seen it plain as day that Levin was moodier than he ever used to be. Maybe they were just trying to cheer him up. Remind him that he still has a life to live. If he _truly_ didn't care, then why go on pretending to live?

The implication, once acknowledged, was clear.

(I have to choose between identifying as a human and being miserable for the rest of my life, and embracing my Pokémon life so that _maybe _I can learn to live again. It sounds like it should be an easy choice, but...being human is the only thing I know for real. Can I really just abandon my humanity?)

His gaze fell back to Karla again.

(I'm not the human that I'm supposed to be. I'm not the Pokémon that you want me to be. But if I keep living like this, then I really might as well not exist. I might never become the Pokémon that everyone wants me to be...but _something _has to change.)

“Hey. Are you still awake?”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't remember if Hero being a human actually came up again after initially meeting Partner but just assume it did in this fic and stop thinking about things.


End file.
